Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Briefs

Man gets 3 life sentences for raping 2-year-old

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 23, 2006

FORT LAUDERDALE - A man was sentenced to three life sentences for kidnapping a sleeping 2-year-old boy from his bed, raping him and discarding him in some bushes.

Damion Winston Foster, 29, was sentenced Friday to three consecutive life terms plus five years in prison after his conviction last month on kidnapping, rape, burglary and sexual abuse charges.

Foster reached through a broken window on April 5, 2004, and grabbed the sleeping boy. The boy's parents discovered him missing around 4 a.m. and called police. The toddler was found 30 minutes later in a bush - naked, bloody and with duct tape wrapped around his entire head.

A fingerprint left on the duct tape matched Foster's.

FORT MYERS - Four people died early Friday and one was seriously injured in what firefighters called one of the deadliest house fires in city history. The victims were believed to be Guatemalan migrants.

Police and fire officials responded to the fire at one of two connected stilt homes at 12:53 a.m. Six people were living in the back unit where the four fatalities and one injury occurred, said Ken Dobson, a spokesman for the Fort Myers Fire Department.

The injured person was taken to a burn center at Tampa General Hospital; the sixth one managed to get out, Dobson said. It's unclear if that person suffered any injuries.

"There did not appear to be any smoke detectors in there, which certainly could have contributed to the tragedy," Dobson said.

Maureen Buice, a spokeswoman for the Fort Myers Police Department, identified the dead as Marcos Dino, 40; Santos Benito, 28; Gregorio Benito, 17; and Martin Hernandez, 17 or 18. The injured person was identified as 17-year-old Mario Dino.

A neighbor told the News-Press of Fort Myers that she saw a man "screaming for the other people" to get out and tried to use the water hose but it did not work.

[Last modified April 23, 2006, 00:49:08]